Timeline (Two Americas)

The War Between the States

1860

• November 6 – Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States. The southern states feel that they were not represented equally over the northern states.

• December 24 – In response to the Presidential election, South Carolina declares sovereignty from the United States of America.

1861

• January – Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana declare sovereignty from the United States.

• February 1 – Texas declares sovereignty from the United States.

• February 8 – In hopes of cooperation, the seven southern states join together to form the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis is declared as the first President of the Confederacy. The United States of America does not recognize their sovereignty.

• April 12 – In response to the Union refusing to leave Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the Confederate States attack the fort. The American Civil War begins.

• April 17 – Virginia declares itself sovereign, seceding from the United States, and joins the Confederate States.

• May – Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina declare their sovereignty, leaving the United States to join the Confederate States.

• October 24 – 41 counties in western Virginia vote to secede from Virginia, joining the United States as a new state (soon to be administered as the State of West Virginia).

1862 (POD)

• December 31 – Colonel Philip Sheridan is killed in the Battle of Muphreesboro, Tennessee. This is a major point of divergence, for Sheridan would have been promoted to Maj. General and go on to lead the "Army of the Potomac" in the destruction of much of the state of Virginia, thus leading to Lee's surrender.

1863

• February – Confederate troops force Union troops out of Tennessee.

The Battle of Gettysburg.

• May 14 – The Confederacy wins at the Battle of Jackson. Forcing Gen. U.S. Grant to retreat and regroup. Grant would later take Jackson, but Vicksburg would stand. This is another major point of divergence.

• July – The Union wins at the Battle of Gettysburg.

1864

• November – The cause of the Confederacy gains support in Missouri and Kentucky. Both states will declare their sovereignty.

1865

• January 1 – Missouri and Kentucky join the CSA.

1866

• January 27 – The United Kingdom and France intervene in the civil war, in an attempt to bring peace to the region.

• August 8 – The Union and the Confederacy agree to a ceasefire. The states of Missouri and Kentucky retain U.S. troops, and are claimed by both sides. The Confederacy keeps troops in parts of Maryland and New Jersey, though not claiming them.

Two Americas

1866

• September – Robert E. Lee is chosen to be Vice President on the Democratic ticket. The Stephens-Lee ticket wins handily, taking all states but Texas.

1867

• March 4 – Alexander Stephens becomes the second president of the Confederate States of America.

• March 29 – Russian Ambassador Eduard de Stoeckl, having renewed an offer to sell Alaska (negotiations having been interrupted by the war), leaves the negotitations without a deal. Secretary of State William Seward had decided that the U.S. did not have the resources to expand while dealing with the "rebel states" to the south. Colonists in Alaska become restless concerning the attempts to sell their land without their consent. This leads to an independence movement among the sparsely populated, but huge, colony.

1868

• March 7 – Vice President Robert E. Lee proposes to the CS Congress to abolish slavery, feeling that this would lead to the recognition of the sovereignty of the Confederacy by the United States government.

1870

• October 12 – Vice President Robert E. Lee dies two weeks after suffering a stroke. He is buried at his home on Arlington Plantation. The Confederate government later purchases the land from Lee's family to establish Arlington National Cemetery. Lee's family plot becomes the cornerstone of the national burial site for military and political leaders and servants alike.

1885

The border changes as described by the Treaty of London.

• May 8 – With the tensions mounting, leaders of both nations traveled to London to sign the Treaty of London. As part of the treaty, the Confederate States gains control of Kentucky and Missouri, as well as gaining their proclaimed Arizona Territory and the Indian Territory. The United States was entitled to West Virginia and the remainder of the New Mexico Territory. The treaty also proclaimed that the Confederate state of Virginia and the Union state of Maryland were to become demilitarized zones until 1900, as a means preventing either nation reigniting the war.

1890

• March – The Confederate States of Florida and Texas abolish the buying, selling, and trading of slaves within the state borders. The idea of slavery was not abolished.

1896

• August 16 – Gold is discovered in the Northwest Territories of the Canadian Confederation. Political moves are made to claim eastern Alaska, whose border with the NWT had yet to be settled by treaty. However, the government in Sitka was not easily fooled and found out about the gold from trappers in the Yukon wilderness. A border war was inevitable. Alaska looked to Russia for support and Canada sought backing from the United States.

1897

• June 20 – Skirmishes begin along the Yukon River between Alaskan and Canadian prospectors. However, since neither government could receive assistance from foreign allies, war is averted diplomatically. An international commission brokers a border dispute permanently establishing the boundary between the two nations.

• September 4 – C.S. Congress votes on the so-called Lee Act, to abolish slavery in the Confederacy. The Bill passes with a two thirds vote in both houses. President Blackburn signs it into law. Since the Constitution allowed for slavery, the bill is sent to the states as an amendment.

1898

• December 6 – Georgia ratifies the third amendment to the C.S. Constitution, thus making slavery illegal in all C.S. states and territories. Ten states out of the thirteen had voted in a little over a year, with nine being needed to pass the amendment. Texas finally votes to ratify in 1929. Civil Rights advocates finally get Kentucky to rescind its rejection with a symbolic vote in 2009. Mississippi has never rescinded its no vote cast in 1898.

Spanish-American War

1898

• January 25 – After three years of negotiations with the Spanish Embassy in Miami, the C.S. Navy sent in the CSS Mississippi to evacuate Confederate citizens that had been living in Havana, Cuba. Stories of atrocities in resettlement and interment camps had raised alarms. The Spanish occupying forces saw this as intimidation.

• February 15 – Sometime during the night, an explosive charge ripped through the hull of the ship has it was anchored in the harbor. This explosion in turn ignited gunpowder in a nearby compartment, killing 235 outright with 8 more dying of their wounds.

• April 20 – An investigation concluded that the explosion "had to have been a mine," and the CS Congress drafted a bill to declare war on Spain. President Blackburn agrees and on April 23, Spain breaks diplomatic relations with the United States (having not yet recognized the Confederate States). In Washington, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt resigned his post and volunteered to lead a group of newly conscripted men to fight in the war (President McKinley had urged for, and received approval to go to war as allies to the southern states).

• July 1 – Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders," one of the few US regiments in the Caribbean campaign, along with soldiers from North Carolina and a regiment of recently freed black soldiers, mounted an attack with 15,000 men against 1,270 entrenched battle-hardened Spanish troops. The Americans would lose 200 that day and sustain nearly 1200 injuries. However, they prevailed.

• August 13 – On the other side of the world, U.S. Naval forces had been engaging the Spanish on their Pacific territories in the Philippines and Guam. Though the peace treaty had been signed on August 12th in Paris, communication was slow. On August 13th, American forces occupied Manila in the last act of the war. Spain granted Cuba independence and sold all her Caribbean and Pacific lands to the "Two Americas" whom they came to recognize officially as such due to their collaboration in the short war. The Confederacy received the Caribbean islands for just over eight million U.S. Dollars, while the Union received the Pacific islands for about twelve million. The $8,000,000 had been most of the CS reserve in US dollars, leading to a trade deficit that would not be resolved until just before the next war.

World War I

1917

• January - Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Britain's secret Royal Navy cryptanalytic group, Room 40, had broken the German diplomatic code. They intercepted a proposal from Berlin (the Zimmermann Telegram) to Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the Confederate States, should the U.S. join. The proposal suggested that if the C.S. were to enter the war then Mexico should declare war against the United States and enlist Japan as an ally. This would prevent the Confederate States from joining the Allies and deploying troops to Europe, and would give Germany more time for their unrestricted submarine warfare program to strangle Britain's vital war supplies. In return, the Germans would promise Mexico support in reclaiming the territory of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona that Mexico lost during the Mexican-American War 70 years prior.
• March 2 - Jones Act of Puerto Rico is passed by C.S. Congress, making citizens of the territory full citizens of the Confederate States. This would make Puerto Ricans eligible for the draft, if need be.
• April 6 - After submarines sank seven C.S. merchant ships, and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, to which the C.S. Congress agreed.
• May 18 - The Congress of the CSA passes the Selective Service Act, authorizing the wartime draft of young men aged 21 to 30. Registration became mandatory for men within this age group. In the US, president Theodore Roosevelt called for volunteers to help in the war, since the US Congress had not declared war. He gets four divisions which he personally greets and oversees as they train.

1918

• March 21 - Germany launches "Operation Michael," designed to divide French and British forces before the Confederates can arrive, advancing into France by 40 miles within days.
• March 28 - US volunteers and CS army troops arrive as support depleted French and British troops. Other Allies, such as Australia, begin pushing the German and other Central Powers out of France.
• August 8 - Allied Counter-offensive - the Hundred Days Offensive - begins.
• November 11 - Armistice is signed at 11:00 - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. A peace treaty with Germany would come June 28, 1919, but the war was essentially over for both Americas. Over 50,000 had died in battle, and more than that had fallen to disease and injuries not associated with battle. In all over 116,000 Americans died. This one year on foreign soil had averaged about the same as in the civil war, when about 620,000 died in five years.

World War II

1933

• 30th January: The leader of the National Socialist Party (Nazi Party) Adolf Hitler is made Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg
• 27th February: The Reichstag is burned down due to unknown reasons. Hitler blames the Communists and other extremist parties
• 23rd March: Hitler and the Nazi party were given Emergency Powers by the Reichstag which gave decrees issued by Hitler the force of the law
• 21st October: Germany withdraws from the League of Nations

1934

• 30th June - 2nd July: "Night of the Long Knives". Many political opponents of the Nazi party and enemies of Hitler are killed
• 2nd August: Hindenburg dies in his home. The Nazi-controlled Reichstag then merges the office of president with that of the chancellor. Therefore Hitler now becomes leader and reich chancellor of Greater Germany.

American cooperation and the Cold War

1947

• November 28 – US President Henry A. Wallace travels to Richmond to visit CS President Harry S. Truman (the first sitting US President to do so). On this day, in what would become known as the Thanksgiving Day Conference, the United States officially recognizes the independence of the Confederate States.

1949

• October 1 – The Communist Party in China ousts the regime of Chiang Kai-shek, arresting him for alleged war crimes in the Chinese civil War. The Republic of China falls and the Communist People's Republic of China is founded. Kai-shek would be executed along with most of his staff. Forces from the United States had been aiding the Kai-shek government, but were no match for the wealth and strength of the Soviet Union who had successfully spread the Communist ideology to a nation torn by civil war for decades.

1951

• July – The Soviet Union takes advantage of unrest in the divided Korean Peninsula to ferment a people's rebellion in the south. Over the objections of American, Canadian and British diplomats, no international intervention is authorized by the United Nations. As a result, the People's Republic of Korea is established. Japan demands that the US send more troops to protect them form Korean advances.

1957

• October 4 - The USSR beats the American rocket program (a joint project among Canadians and both Americas) off the "starting line" of the Space Race, launching Sputnik 1.

1959

• February 6 - CS President Strom Thurmond pledges in a speech at Cape Canaveral that with missiles such as the Titan, which was to launch that day, the American Space program would colonize the moon by the year 2000.

1961

• April 12 - Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, a passenger in a remote controlled craft that orbited the earth.
• April 20 - US President John F. Kennedy refines Thurmond's goal to a smaller goal with a tighter deadline: A man safely landed on the moon and returned by 1970.
• May 5 - Alan Shepherd, from the US state of Vermont, flies out of the CS launch site at Cape Canaveral on a suborbital flight with himself at the controls (executing timed thrusts of retro-rockets to control re-entry). This flight had been originally scheduled for October 1960, but had been delayed due to technical difficulties.
• October 7 - Soviet-trained Carlos Franseca successfully raids militiary bases loyal to the corrupt, but CS backed, Samoza government. Guerrillas were able to escape with supplies and training manuals that allowed them an advantage in their fight for individual freedoms. When bloodshed is reported, CS President Thurmond sends in "advisers" to assure peace. Peace is a long way off.

1962

• February 20 - John Glenn, of Ohio, USA, pilots a space craft for three orbits of the earth after being launched into space from the CS facility at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1963

A sign showing a "Whites only beach."

• August 28 - Dr. Michael "Mike" King Jr. leads a civil rights march in the CS capital of Richmond. Organizers estimated that there were upwards of 150,000 marchers, though police estimated about 100,000. It was not known how many marchers were sympathetic aliens sent down from Washington. A good 90% of those in attendance were black citizens who organizers claimed had actually registered for the march. At the end of the march, on the base of the Lee Memorial, King delivered what came to be called the "I Have a Dream" speech. See main article - Civil Rights in the Confederacy
• November 2 - After months of infighting in the Kennedy administration, things go bad in Vietnam. The southeast Asian land, split by a 1955 treaty in an attempt to hold back Communist expansion, had reached a turning point. The formerly US supported regime in the south had shown to be corrupt. Against Kennedy's knowledge, agents of the US had even been talking of the possibility of a "regime change." The coup in South Vietnam had been successful. Since the US did not have the troops to spare, and the CS was occupied in a battle for control of Central America, Vietnam was reunited as the "People's Republic of Vietnam."
• November 20 - In an attempt to salvage his foreign policy in his war on Communist expansion, US President John F. Kennedy travels to CS President Lydon B. Johnson's ranch near Dallas, Texas, to discuss renewed efforts to work together as their nations had done in World War II.
• November 22 - US President John F. Kennedy, having traveled to meet CS President Lydon B. Johnson at the latter's ranch for a conference on international relations, takes part in a parade through Dallas, Texas. He and Texas governor John Conally are shot by an unknown assailant from a highrise structure near the route. Kennedy dies hours later in a local hospital. Vice President Henry M. Jackson is sworn in as the 35th President of the United States. Conally survives and will later, as president of the Confederacy, commission a committee to find the killer who had alluded Texas and CS authorities for nearly two decades.

American Reunification Movement

1992

• March – After the conference, informal talks of reunification began. Sporadic for a while, there was a growing sentiment in both nations for some official organization to that end.

Cooperation in Disaster

2001

• September 11 – Terrorists hijack four United States jumbo jets and crash them into US icons. The World Trade Centers in New York are effected the most. Within weeks, Confederate citizens will travel to New York in a cleanup effort.

2005

• August 29 – Hurricane Katrina hits land in Louisiana. The strong storm destroys the levy system of New Orleans, and the city floods. The United States sends in troops to assist the Confederacy in a rescue and cleanup effort.